Those we would follow won’t lead,
those who might lead we won’t follow.
— submitted by Jeff Roby
August 10, 2013
A Little Background
The debate kept going back and forth between independents and left Democrats. Hadn’t changed much in 20-odd years. The Democrats were a sold-out corporate party, they were a trap for the Left, they took bad positions on this, that and the other, imperialist warmongers, etc. (All true.) The Democrats argued back that the working class base that the Left needed was still beholden to the Democrats (all true), and could not be abandoned. The indies smartly retorted that a more progressive politic would draw in the currently unorganized. Democrats smirked back, “Yeah, prove it!” which the indies didn’t. Then there was the lesser/greater evil thing. “Yo momma’s the lesser evil!” “Well, yo momma’s the greater evil!” Ralph Nader Ralph Nader Ralph Nader Ralph Nader …
My own position was that an independent 3rd party was strategically critical, but that the current 3rd party movement was content to lurk snug and happy with their correctness in what I dubbed the 3rd Party Ghetto. I thought the Democratic Party primaries were a venue where that working class base could be reached, and that the task at hand was to build an independent infrastructure WITHIN the Democratic Party and pull it independent, thereby revitalizing the independent forces.
There was also a lot of discussion on the lefty blog OpenLeft decrying the fact that so many Democratic congresspersons never faced a challenge in their primaries. I argued that somebody should do something about it. Go after the weak chink in the Democratic Party’s armor, their congressional primaries. Run a challenger in ALL the Democratic congressional primaries. Somebody, really. Please.
For a Full Court Press
Nobody did. And since I was nobody, I figured it was up to me, for better or worse. Me and my big mouth. On lefty blog OpenLeft in late 2009, I put out the call for an organization called the Full Court Press. Moderator Paul Rosenberg front-paged it on a Saturday, and on Sunday it was yanked under orders of super-moderator Chris Bowers (now a biggie at Daily Kos). I published it on Docudharma instead, and the response was enormously enthusiastic.
The Committee for a Full Court Press (FCP), I wrote, would agree on the following principles:
WPA-style jobs program
Defend the safety net (Social Security, etc.)
Medicare for all the uninsured
Repeal Hyde Amendment and its ilk
U.S. out of Afghanistan
“The FCP activist would pay the required filing fee or gather required signatures or combination thereof to get on the primary ballot. While any FCP candidate could run a full-fledged campaign with the intent to win the seat, a minimal candidate could:
- Ask the other candidates if they will actively support the FCP points and say so in writing.
- If they sign, the FCP candidate could simply endorse that candidate, or the best of those candidates (if such is the case) and campaign actively for their endorsee or not as the FCP candidate sees fit.
- If that candidate betrays the points, the FCP candidate would have the option of campaigning more aggressively.”
A little research showed it would require nationwide:
$588,081 in filing fees
298,488 signatures
Split 435 ways, that comes to:
$1,358 filing fee
693 signatures
Certainly not out of the ballpark.
ActWho?
The Full Court Press was a direct challenge to the liberal sacred cow of “elect more and better Democrats,” as embodied by ActBlue. As I wrote on Docudharma:
“I’m feeling a little less tolerant of bullshit today, so let’s have a fight. Over strategy and method. Let me pick on ActBlue, because variations of its strategy of funding liberal candidates to replace the worst of the Democrats has been holy writ among progressives for so many years. … Fundamental to its approach is that the problem either lies with, or is solved by, focusing on individuals. Concentrate funds and volunteers on miscreants like Lieberman or Nelson. Or even Reid, if you want to walk on the wild side. Picking off the worst will gradually repair the DP in ones and twos. The challenger runs not on a hard set of principles, but on what will get him or her elected. The ActBlue challenger above all has to be credible. Credible means having longstanding experience in the party, the trust of party insiders, and the ability to attract big money. In other words, the ideal insurgent is a young party regular of whatever principles who can raise money.”
We’ve seen how well that worked out.
My goal, if anyone asked, was to lose 435 Democratic primaries. I felt that a shotgun blast approach would have more impact than a few hit-or-miss rounds from what was promised to be a high-powered rifle but turned out to be a few squirts from a broken squirt gun.
Two Humps
The plan required getting over two humps, first, building that infrastructure, second, pulling it independent. Pushing it on the blogs, we got a lot of initial support. “Sign me up!” etc. But a funny thing happened on the road to Rio. The plan was quite clear, people claimed to agree with it, but supporters quickly broke into two camps: (1) those who wanted to concentrate on a few winnable races (a slightly more left version of ActBlue), and (2) those who wanted to chuck the primaries and go independent immediately.
In other words, people wanted to follow their basic impulses, and were not down for a maneuver requiring tactical sophistication. I couldn’t get over the first hump. I folded my tent and sulked for a while.
Back to the Drawing Board
Meanwhile, between ObamaCare feeding the uninsured to the insurance industry and a jobs program consisting of corporate tax breaks and Guantanamo still standing, Obama was fully revealed as the corporate front-man that he always was. So I published Time for a Dump Obama Movement on Open Left and FireDogLake. The anger was certainly out there. The basic concept was the same, concentrate on one race, the presidential, not 435, focus on a small set of progressive issues that exposed Obama’s perfidy, and try to move forces independent.
The initial response was even more enthusiastic. But so was the hysteria. This was clearly hitting a raw nerve and, given what a nobody I am, totally disproportionate. It will cost Obama the election! And Ralph Nader Ralph Nader Ralph Nader Ralph Nader. Huh? This was just a damn primary, for chrissake. A Democratic primary which was supposed to be the venue where the Left could “safely” raise its issues.
OpenLeft’s Paul Rosenberg gave me my second favorite title of all time, dubbing me jeffroby666, and bequeathed upon me the greatest honor I have ever received, stating, “I really have no time for the likes of you, Jeff. You are probably the most effective force in demobilizing the Left so far as building electoral power goes.” Though he had so little time, the poor man ended up writing no fewer than eight diaries directly attacking Dump Obama or taking sideswipes at it and me.
Leftist Tony Noel and I created an online organization (ultimately to become the New Progressive Alliance) on FireDogLake, which set out to find us a candidate. Then it got weird. People came up with a magnificent list of prospective candidates, from Dennis Kucinich to Joan Jett to Alan Grayson to Madonna to everything in-between, eventually whittling it down to 10, with Elizabeth Warren, Russ Feingold, Howard Dean and Richard Trumka being the favorites. People argued passionately, with nary a thought to whether any of these luminaries had the slightest interest in actually going up against Obama.
Noel wanted to add the condition that any NPA candidate had to pledge in advance to run independent in November, automatically cutting out most of the favorites. With this going nowhere fast, I argued that we needed to find some non-celebrity figure and make some kind of run while there was still time for ballot access. Picking off the easy access states would still have made the point.
Finally, a Madison, Wisconsin radio personality named Aldous Tyler did make the leap, and I worked on his campaign while the NPA refused to back him as he would not pledge in advance to run independent in the general election. Tyler had little money, was mocked, and didn’t get enough support to sustain his spirit. He dropped out.
Back to the Drawing Board Again
Time for reassessment. I mention various weaknesses in the Dump Obama and NPA tactics, but it would be a mistake to put too much weight on those alone. The fundamental problem, then and now, is that the progressive Left will under no circumstances challenge the Democratic Party at the national level. If not 2012, when? Answer: never. They will criticize no end — Snowden, NSA spying, Middle Eastern wars, collusion with Republicans, the whole shebang. But as long as they make clear their ultimate loyalty to the party, as long as their whining and moaning has no teeth, they serve as a political cage, as a playpen for progressives (the “Veal Pen,” as FireDogLake’s Jane Hamsher dubbed it), serving the same function as the cages the police dub the designated protest zones they set up to keep our demonstrations under control.
So I concluded that there was no material basis for creating an independent force within the Democratic Party. Indeed, I could and do take into account my own shortcomings as an organizer. But if the material conditions for creating an independent force there had existed, then better organizers than I would have come to the fore. The failure to primary Obama in 2012 was a massive failure of the entire U.S. Left.
Thus my eyes turned more seriously to the Green Party.
No Guarantees
First I must say that just because the Democratic Party is not viable for progressives, it doesn’t follow that the Green Party is therefore automatically viable. History doesn’t support “the people united will never be defeated.” Nor is our strength as the strength of 10 for our hearts are pure (which they aren’t). I have described the Green Party as part of the 3rd party ghetto, commanding the independent political niche but complacent about doing little more than hanging on to its turf.
But Jill Stein’s 2012 Green presidential campaign, with its increased emphasis on economic issues and the Green New Deal, along with her commitment to party-building, has convinced me that it has a chance. But oh yes, there are issues.
To recap its history in brief, Ralph Nader ran, by left independent standards, an extremely successful campaign in year 2000, getting 2,882,955 votes (2.74%). That included 97,488 votes (1.63%) in Florida, where Republican thuggery stole the election for George Bush, with Gore/Lieberman losing by 537 votes. The Democratic Party and even its most leftist minions went berserk, blaming Nader for Gore’s insipid performance. Over the years, Nader has been held personally responsible for every Iraqi baby killed by U.S. weaponry. Elements of the Green Party went into shock, allowing Texas lawyer David Cobb to game the delegate selection process and win the Green nomination in 2004.
Safe? For whom?
The little-known Cobb used what he billed as the “smart-growth strategy,” but which has gone down in infamy as the “safe-states” strategy, actively campaigning in states that were clearly going to either the Democrats or the Republicans, but making only the most token effort in states where his candidacy might actually make a difference. Thus Cobb’s running mate Pat LaMarche announced that she would not vote for her own ticket in her home state of Maine, but would vote instead for John Kerry.
Cobb himself ultimately went on to spearhead John Kerry’s abortive effort to force a recount of the votes in Ohio, ending up for a time on the Board of Directors of the Green Institute, a Green thinktank sponsored in large part by significant Democratic contributors Richard and Marilyn Mazess of Wisconsin, who gave it some $500,000, according to greens.org.
But the Green Party itself?
Back to the Scene of the Crime
That would be Florida — the Dangerous State. A few numbers would be helpful:
| U.S. Total | % | Florida Total | % | |
| Nader 2000 | 2,882,955 | 2.74% | 97,488 | 1.63% |
| Cobb 2004 | 119,859 | 0.10% | 3,917 | 0.05% |
| McKinney 2008 | 161,797 | 0.12% | 2,887 | 0.03% |
| Stein 2012 | 469,501 | 0.36% | 8,947 | 0.11% |
While the Green U.S. totals fell off sharply from 2000 to 2004, the 2004 totals being 4.16% of 2000’s numbers, the Florida totals were a bit worse, only 4.02% in 2004 compared to 2000. McKinney in 2008 showed a national uptick compared to 2000, rising to 5.61% of Nader’s 2000 numbers. But in Florida, support continued to plummet, to 2.96% of the 2000 totals.
In other words, Florida was especially damaged by the 2004 fiasco, with the damage in one election rendering the party even weaker going into the next one. But one set of numbers is oddly encouraging for Sunshine State. While Stein’s national totals were 2.9 times McKinney’s in 2008, the 2012 increase in Florida was 3.1 times 2008’s. Yet Green registrations held steady between 2008 and 2012 at around 6,000.
At the risk of being labeled clinically insane, I take that as extremely hopeful. Because it means that the market for Green ideas is on the upswing, despite the party’s organizational weakness, and if the party can get its organizational act together, the prospects could be sunny indeed.
I interpret the improvement from 2008 to 2012 in part to Jill Stein doing a top-notch job with very little to work with in terms of money and name recognition. But I think the foremost factor is the utter collapse of Obama’s promise of Hope and Change, and the Democratic Party’s deterioration as any kind of progressive force whatsoever. And anyone not clinically insane can see that this deterioration will only accelerate, and that the public’s response will be, probably not a tsunami in the short run, but increased support for the Green Party to the extent that the Green Party can actually do the work of presenting itself to the public.
Time for “Rehab”
To repair the damage of the safe-state strategy is no simple matter. Fact is, the Green Party is indeed a left party, yet it is anathema to most progressives, particularly at the national level. We are friends of the Left, but the Left are not friends of us. We threaten what remains of their pathetic dreams of finding a welcome mat at the White House door. But the damage wasn’t simply a loss of numbers. It ravaged it politically as well. With the mass desertions post-2004 came the loss of many hardcore independents, while the ranks of the more conservative safe-staters held the reins. In other words, safe-statism, conquering first by gaming the 2004 nomination process, became hegemonic within the party. Not merely administratively, but politically, setting the boundaries of the acceptable, setting the very terms of discussion.
One form this hegemony takes is an over-emphasis on dogcatcher races, while eschewing the larger offices where major policy is actually determined. I have had many a discussion with Democrats, about independent politics. They are often quite happy to offer us their good advice, which is to elect lots of dogcatchers but stay out of their hair on the national level. Funny how well that meshes with the safe-state strategy. (As an aside, in 2004, Green elected officials were among the most vigorous proponents of safe-statism.)
Still, the Stein campaign has rattled some cages. Coming into the party as something of an outsider, she has shifted the party’s equilibrium, with her commitment to party-building and her Green New Deal. As Stein explained in a 2012 interview with Joshua Frank in Dissident Voice, “I was not really tuned into the controversy between Nader and Cobb … I was really too clueless about internal Green Party battles to take sides. I voted for Cobb that year only because he was the party’s candidate and I was all about trying to build the Green Party.”
Stein campaign manager Ben Manski added, “There were many mistakes made by many people on all sides of the 2004 debate … The test is whether people learn from their mistakes, and whether they recognize that others have learned from their mistakes. The Greens have a lot of experience with independent politics. We’ve learned many lessons the hard way, and having survived those lessons, we are stronger for it … Even David Cobb now thinks that the whole safe-states thing was a mistake.”
Oh, To Be Dangerous and Proud
The dilemma of the safe-states strategy, and its companion-piece, the dogcatcher strategy, is that the Green Party still has aspirations of power and change, even in this most Dangerous State of Florida. But if we are ever to be successful, then it is inevitable that at some point in our growth, we will end up costing the Democrats elections, at every level. No getting around it. No hedging. So we might as well get down to it.
Someday, a Democrat will have a real shot at becoming governor of Florida, running two smidges to the left of the Republican. Should the Green Party write off the governor’s office, lest the Left be pissed? Obama will keep trying to cut deals with the Republicans like he did when he was offering them the Chained CPI (slashing the annual benefit increases for Social Security recipients). I called the congressional offices of the Florida Democrats, asked whether they would pledge to oppose the Chained CPI, even if Pelosi were giving them marching orders to do so. They didn’t like the Chained CPI, most of them, but they wouldn’t commit to opposing Pelosi and Obama if it came down the crunch. This is their nature. Are we to lay off Florida’s congressional seats for the likes of these? The same logic applies all down the line. Are we to confine ourselves to non-partisan races, or inconsequential races, deluding ourselves that we can go for dogcatcher now and build up our forces for eventually contesting the higher offices?
Mind you, I am fine with Greens running for dogcatcher. Let’s elect lots of dogcatchers, those dogs are getting away with far too much. But while it is fine as a tactic, we dare not elevate it to a strategy. The strength of the Green Party is that it takes stands on the big issues of war and poverty and the environment, issues of social justice and racism. We have to be able to actually campaign on those issues, not just cover our asses with stirring press releases.
Then there is what I call the conversion factor. It’s fine to say we’ll run on clean government and local reform, stick with small-town issues, and then somehow do something different once we are stronger. But it just doesn’t work that way. It is folly thinking that we can build the base of the party on a strategic foundation of clean government and local reform, and then move on to the bigger issues, the urban and national issues. As they say, you get what you organize.
Case in point: the Karen Morian campaign in Jacksonville. She was enormously successful, getting 31% of the vote last year against an otherwise unopposed Republican in the race for House District 12. But we still don’t have a Green Party local there. Morian made a lot of friends among abandoned Democrats, in labor and environmental circles, but those so-called friends are not friends of the Green Party, and are not going to lift a finger towards building a Green Party local. More broadly, our small-office successes in Florida have not provided a springboard for greater growth.
This is not China, where maneuvering from the wide open countryside among down-trodden peasants worked fine for Mao’s People’s Liberation Army. It won’t work for us. And no, we can’t think small locally and hope that the national Green Party or Jill Stein’s Green Shadow Cabinet will bail us out. They can illuminate the path, but we must walk it ourselves.
Let me be clear, I am not questioning the loyalty or integrity of those who have won small offices as Greens. Henry Lawrence in Bay County, who ran as a Green for County Commissioner in Bay County, has just announced that he is running Green for Florida House District 6 in 2014. But the problem remains, that you become beholden to the base you organize, and if that base doesn’t move, then you can’t move without risking a major rupture, and not everyone has that courage.
No More 3rd Party Ghetto
Then there are our friends on the Left, the Left that reaches for its smelling salts at the mention of Ralph Nader. Yes, the Left denounces and demonstrates and even publishes brilliant scathing analyses. It rages, it howls, it even stamps its feet. But when Obama and his successors kill more children with their drones, starve more seniors with their budget deals, spy on our every move through the NSA, the Left will not exact a price at the ballot box, even though they are killing us. Making them pay is our job. Am I being too harsh on people with good intentions, who are often our personal friends? Ask this, did they vote for Jill Stein in 2012?
If we do our job, hopefully they will come along. History is ultimately the best organizer, and I believe history is moving our way. But on our part, we have to break out of the 3rd party ghetto. We have to take on our responsibility for becoming a mortal threat to Democratic aspirations. The same Left that failed to primary Obama in 2012 watches us, even behind their coalitional smiles. In the aggregate, they do not wish us well. Ironically, the Florida party has a marvelous opportunity to exploit its strategic location at the scene of the crime, to play a role in defining independent politics for the nation. But only if we have the courage to do so. If we have the courage to exact that price, if we can become even minor players between now and 2016.
So when we are confronted by erstwhile progressives and leftists who don’t want us to cost their candidate in this election, wherever it is, rather than hanging our heads in embarrassment, we need to proudly look them in the eye and say, “Ralph Nader Ralph Nader Ralph Nader Ralph Nader!”
